Local Indian rebar prices have continued to indicate significant decreases amid scarce trading activity due to a combination of factors including the festival holidays and heavy rains in certain regions, while sellers have also been reducing prices because of pressures from inventories, SteelOrbis learned from trade and industry circles on Wednesday, October 1.
Sources said that rebar suffered the biggest setbacks in major trading hubs like Mumbai where the price slumped by INR 1,000/mt ($11/mt) to INR 43,000/mt ($485/mt), while it was down INR 300/mt ($3/mt) to INR 44,200/mt ($498/mt) ex-Chennai in the south.
Rebar trade prices have lost INR 200/mt ($2/mt) to INR 39,400/mt ($444/mt) ex-Raipur in the central region. Prices for Durgapur in the east were not available owing to the festival holidays in the region.
The sources said that trade activity has been extremely sluggish as the expected demand revival has failed to materialize, with large buyers from engineering procurement and construction (EPC) companies absent from the market, and retail buying has also remained negligible as continued rains have forced delays in the revival of construction activities in real estate and urban infrastructure projects.
“Induction furnace operators and distributors were dropping prices under pressures of rising inventories. Most buyers in the east and northern regions were absent from the market owing to holidays. We expect prices for construction grade steel to remain under pressure in the coming weeks too,” a Kolkata-based distributor said.
$1 = INR 88.73